Description:

A partly-animated biography of exiled Russian-Jewish poet and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996), based on his letters and drawings.

The present day filming of the city where the poet used to live is combined with documentaries, computer graphics, and animation based on the poet's own drawings, as well as on photographs made by A. Brodsky, his father. This film became a sort of "prologue" to Hrzhanoskiy's live-action feature bio-film about Brodsky that came out in 2009, "A Room and a Half, or the Sentimental Journey to the Motherland".

Brodsky's poems can be read here (in Russian), and some specific ones that are in the film can be found here and here.

The video above seems to have been the version sent to international film festivals. It has English hard-subs, but not everything was translated (in particular, none of the poems were). The subtitles on this site attempt to translate the poems as well, at least imperfectly.

Awards:
2002 - Azerbaijan - East & West Festival - "For the Most Humane Message" Prize
2002 - Russia/Ukraine - KROK International Festival of Animated Film - "For Loyalty to One's Own Self" Prize of the "Generation Egoist" magazine
2002 - Russia - "Stalker" International Human Rights Film Festival, Valery Frid Prize
2003 - Russia - "Nika" Award (Russian Film Maker's Academy) - Best Animated Film
2003 - Russia - "Golden Eagle" Award - Best Animated Film
2003 - Russia (Suzdal) - Open Russian Festival for Animated Film - "For a Highly Artistic Solution to a Large-Scale Concept" Prize
2003 - Poland - XLIII Kraków Film Festival - "Golden Dragon" Grand Prix